It is time to stop hampering Turkey

I would like to make a brief revision of Turkey's Operation Shah Euphrates, which was announced by international agencies on Sunday, since I think it would probably help the international public who are not very familiar with Turkey to gain insight into what exactly happened.

The Tomb of Süleyman Shah and Memorial Outpost, which is assigned to guard the tomb, is a Turkish exclave within the borders of Syria located in the Karakozak village of Aleppo. It is the only Turkish territory outside the country's borders. The tombs of Süleyman Shah and his companions, who is the grandfather of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire, and father of Ertuğrul Gazi, are located in this mausoleum. The mausoleum was lately being guarded by 25 Turkish soldiers, but was constantly under the threat of Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) militants.

The region where the tomb is located was captured by ISIS last year as a result of conflicts between Free Syrian Army and ISIS. In a declaration released on YouTube on March 20, 2014, ISIS announced that they would ravish the tomb if it was not evacuated and the Turkish flag on it was not lowered within three days. Upon that, Turkey increased security measures to the utmost level. Vehicles and personnel reinforcements were made. However, the threats started to become more intense lately. Since the symbolic meaning of the tomb was known well by ISIS, Turkey had to make a decision. And the most appropriate decision was made. It would be wrong to grant ISIS a propaganda tool. Therefore, without shedding blood and with using rights stemming from international law and conforming to international rules, the matter was resolved without any bloodshed.

Unlike the claims of some circles in the EU that have problems with Turkey, Turkey maintains its determined stance regarding the fight against ISIS and terrorism and does not act as a mere spectator and remain indifferent to the bloody war of President Bashar Assad in Syria and the acts of ISIS, unlike most EU countries. Therefore, it relocated the Tomb of Süleyman Shah to a safer place closer to Turkey's borders with a military operation on Feb. 21-22 following intelligence data that the safety of the military officers guarding the tomb was under threat.

Thanks to that, ISIS did not have a chance to organize a provocative attack on the Tomb of Süleyman Shah. Also, the plots of some groups that want Turkey to involve itself in a bloody war in which it would remain all alone came to nothing.

Some 39 tanks, 100 vehicles, 57 armored vehicles and 572 personnel took part in the operation. No conflict was experienced during the operation. But unfortunately, a Turkish soldier was killed as a result of an accident during the transfer in an early phase of the operation. With a successful operation for which ISIS did not have a chance to answer, Turkey once again proved to the entire world that it is a modernly equipped, powerful and experienced country, which doubled the impression they created when they saved the consular staff taken hostage by ISIS previously in Mosul.

Particularly our allies in the EU, and also in NATO, do not act sincerely in the fields of humanitarian or military aid in Syria and Iraq, which are the countries feeding terrorism. So Turkey, which reacts against Assad's tyranny over his own people and ISIS terrorism, has actually been left alone.

Kobani was saved from ISIS to a great extent thanks to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) peshmerga forces from Iraq that had access to the region through Turkish territory and Turkey's support for these forces. This is the region where a part of the weapons provided by EU countries were seized by ISIS or other terrorist organizations.

Turkey kept its borders open and welcomed about 2 million refugees, which saved the lives of a great majority not only from Kobani, but also from the whole conflict zone.

The voluntary participation of foreign fighters in ISIS was prevented since Turkey closed its borders to those people thanks to its own intelligence data while the intelligence institutions of many EU countries did not share their own data.

It is known that about 17,000 terrorists, who are called "foreign fighters," are currently fighting for ISIS. Even those working for Western intelligence agencies leaked among them. Some 300 people were detected to have transferred strategic data about ISIS via phone calls.

The region is in a complex situation and Turkey must act very attentively. Turkey is doing its part in fighting terrorism on its own since its allies do not display an exemplary cooperation in many fields.

In brief, no one can say a word about Turkey's fight against terrorism.

Under such circumstances, Turkey expects only one thing, particularly from EU countries – stop hampering Turkey's anti-terrorist activities in every field and start supporting it instead.